The SwissCast information push service
A multidisciplinary research, a multifaceted experience
Riccardo MazzaUSI - Faculty of Communication Sciences of the Università della Svizzera Italiana Lugano - Switzerland
e-mail: [email protected]
2SIGIR99 - Workshop on Customized Information Delivery - Berkeley August 19 th 1999
Overview
IntroductionA brief presentation of the SwissCast projectImplementation of the serviceNext steps & conclusion
3SIGIR99 - Workshop on Customized Information Delivery - Berkeley August 19 th 1999
Project Goals Gathering and delivering information using
Internet as communication medium Analyzing the communication needs for
information providers and users Integrating existing technologies Developing a stable and functional prototype
as a basis for further studies Designing a user-oriented graphical interface Testing and assessing the application with
selected groups of users
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Main competencies involved
Communication theory specialist Task: analysis of information providers’ and users’
communicational needs, in order to offer only relevant communication
Visual communication specialist Task: design user-oriented graphical interface
Information technologies expert Task: implement the application
Information system manager Task: run the application
True interdisciplinary research team
5SIGIR99 - Workshop on Customized Information Delivery - Berkeley August 19 th 1999
Use push service as an information brokerage service
Definition of push service:
push is the automatic delivery of information to user’s desktop; content is organised by topic defined by a publisher and users receive information according to their own pre-defined profile.
Push service carried out by a third part
Information brokerage service
6SIGIR99 - Workshop on Customized Information Delivery - Berkeley August 19 th 1999
Information brokerage activities
Defining the application areaDefining who are the target users (and their
needs)Selecting reliable information sourcesClassifying, filtering and editing information,
accordingly to a suitable classification scheme and layout
Delivering personalised information according to users profiles
Notifying users if new content is available
7SIGIR99 - Workshop on Customized Information Delivery - Berkeley August 19 th 1999
Overview
IntroductionA brief presentation of the SwissCast
projectImplementation of the serviceNext steps & conclusion
8SIGIR99 - Workshop on Customized Information Delivery - Berkeley August 19 th 1999
Project’s details Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) - Swiss
Priority Program (SPP) Information and Communications Structures
Organisations involved: University of Svizzera Italiana - Faculty of Communication
Sciences - Lugano (Switzerland) University of Applied Sciences of Southern Switzerland - Lugano
Ongoing project: Start date: October 1st 1997 / end date: March 31st 2000
Project heads Prof. Maurizio Decina (USI) - Requérant Principal Prof. Eddo Rigotti (USI) - Corequérant Dr. Fiorenzo Scaroni (SUP) - Corequérant
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Two application areas
Research Areaproject partner:
R&D University Office (USI/SUPSI)
Pharmaceutical Areaproject partners:
VIA Marketing & Promotion S.A. - Lugano Pfizer AG - Zurich other 2 minor pharmaceutical company based in Ticino
canton of Switzerland
10SIGIR99 - Workshop on Customized Information Delivery - Berkeley August 19 th 1999
Overview
IntroductionA brief presentation of the SwissCast project Implementation of the serviceNext steps & conclusion
11SIGIR99 - Workshop on Customized Information Delivery - Berkeley August 19 th 1999
ImplementationSwissCast is an application with threecomponents:
1 - information gathering2 - classification3 - delivering/casting
User 1 user 2 user n
Information Provider
Document
Repository
Gathering
Classification
Delivery
Information Provider
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Information gathering
Inserted directly by providers via web forms with a common web browser
Gathered by a set of agent from: databases accessed via Telnet (EU-Cordis - CCL
version) gateways from remote corporate databases
(Actamed DB)
From WWW pages resources harvested using a web robot
Active Providers
Passive Providers
Information can be inserted into SwissCast using 3 modalities:
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ClassificationSemantic mapping of available information,
accordingly to a keyword scheme. This is done: manually by Active information providers, when they
insert new information items automatically, using a semantic conversion map, for
corporate databases manually by an editorial board, for the resources
harvested from WWW
IMPORTANT ISSUE: In doing it, human expertise can be helped by automatic tools, but never substituted
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Classification schema adoptedResearch Area
Subject Classification Code by Cordis (EU R&D Information Service)
Pharmaceutical Area MSH - Medical Subject Headings by the U.S. National
Library of Medicine.
The same classification schema is used both for documents and profiles
Matching documents against users’ profiles, done using boolean operators working on the keyword schema
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Delivery
Notification via E-mail message (push method) list of matched document
Personal Web page (pull method) read document through a common Web browser
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Personalised information dissemination
Each user has a set of ‘static’ profiles, describing his own interests
Three main customisation items: subject related (e.g. programming languages,
research founding info, etc.) type related (event, news, grant, tender) time related (notification frequency: day, week, …)
Combination of push (e-mail) and pull (personal Web pages) technologies
Search archive facilities (fulltext, class)
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User interface
Interaction with the system completely web-based, including service’s management & document input
Main features: easy to use for novice users strong and effective visual presence doesn’t need special hardware requirements (no Java,
DHTM, etc.) poor in graphics element, in order to speed up the
downloading process contextual on-line help
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What’s currently on-line
Full functional prototype, already used in the field of research information delivering http://swisscast.ti-edu.ch:8002/
Under testing in the field of pharmaceutical information http://swisscast.ti-edu.ch:8001/
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AssessmentOngoing project: the test phase started in
June ’99 which currently involves 70 different professional users
First impressions by users (to be confirmed by assessment results): the service gives useful information for their activities found relevant documents for their profiles very easy to use
In the near future: having a semi-structured interview with a representative
sample of end users via an electronic form or via a personal interview
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Overview
IntroductionA brief presentation of the SwissCast projectImplementation of the serviceNext steps & conclusion
21SIGIR99 - Workshop on Customized Information Delivery - Berkeley August 19 th 1999
Next stepsAssessment activitiesFor the broker: study of smart technologies
to help the service manager automatic pre-classification of information (currently the
major bottleneck) automatic text summarization ...
For the user: study of ‘dynamic’ user profiles relevance feedback automatic ranking …
Multi-language support
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Some (provisory) results
Push service works well only for specific information needs
For classification activities, human expertise can be helped by automatic tools, but never substituted
Technological tools are essential, but can not work without communicational and visual competencies
Professionals needs certification and reliability of information sources
User interfaces as easy as possible
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Conclusion
Developed a stable and functional prototype actively used by researcher
Good impression by usersCommunicational theories and studies
applied to a real application Prototype ready for further studiesTest bed for a true interdisciplinary
research team
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More info and access to the service
Project Websitehttp://swisscast.ti-edu.ch/
E-mail (help, info, questions, …)[email protected]
Access to the service - Research areahttp://swisscast.ti-edu.ch:8002/
Access to the service - Pharmaceutical areahttp://swisscast.ti-edu.ch:8001/